The Mothball & Scrapyard Facility

The Mothball & Scrapyard Facility is a new spaceport module that allows a player to “mothball” a fleet. This deactivates the chosen fleet, and it remains in orbit above the planet until the player chooses to reactivate it.

While mothballed, the fleet is not controllable in any sense, and the upkeep for all ships in the fleet is reduced to 0. This is useful for players who want to keep an emergency reserve force but don’t want to pay the upkeep costs while it is not being used.

Once the player chooses to reactivate a fleet, it will take some time to make the ships operational again, and will cost minerals to do so. The cost can vary widely, but will never be more than 70% of the original mineral cost of the fleet. The reactivation process takes one month to complete and requires two construction ships to be in the same planetary orbit as the fleet itself.

To make use of this feature, first build the Mothball & Scrapyard Facility at the Spaceport where you wish to “stage” your mothballed fleets. Then you can use Planetary Edicts to Mothball a fleet, Reactivate a fleet, or to scrap a Mothballed fleet. Pop up dialogs will give details on the entire process. Be sure that you read the information provided there, it is important.

The Mothball Module Process & Info:

Build the module at a spaceport of your choosing. Do not use your homeworld or any planet you plan to build ships at – once the module is activated, all military ships in orbit will be automatically mothballed.

Once the module is built, move at least one fleet to the planet and open the Planet Edicts window. Choose “Activate Mothball Module” and read the popup.

Once activated, the fleet in orbit will be mothballed and uncontrollable. Any other military fleet that enters orbit of the planet while the module is activated will automatically be mothballed with no notice or warning.

Once you are ready to reactivate your fleets, open the Planet Edicts window and choose “Deactivate Mothball Module.” Be Careful: This step will reactivate all fleets currently in orbit of the planet.

A Special Project will show up in your Situation Log. You must move two construction ships into orbit to begin the reactivation process, which takes one month to complete.

Once complete, you will receive a bill for the reactivation cost. This cost starts at 10 minerals per 1 point of fleet capacity, and increases every 10 years up to a maximum of 50 minerals per 1 fleet capacity. (For example: If you mothball a fleet with 100 fleet capacity for 10 years or less, the reactivation cost will be around 1000 minerals. If the same fleet remains mothballed for 50 years, the cost will be roughly 5000 minerals.)

If you cannot afford to pay the entire reactivation bill up front, you will be required to pay monthly payments, based off of your empire’s total income, until the balance is paid in full.

Special Notes:

The Mothball process applies to military ships only. It does not affect science, construction, transport, or civilian ships.

While mothballed, ships are simply lifeless husks sitting in space and are not controllable in any way. Enemy ships will not see mothballed fleets as a target. If the planet is ever bombarded, all mothballed fleets are destroyed.

The spaceport module also has the option of scrapping a mothballed fleet. This process works the same as mothballing, via a Planet Edict, and requires the same 30 day time period and two construction ships. The advantage to this is that you will be refunded some of the initial build cost of the mothballed ships.